EarSay Youth Voices: Transforming Trauma Into Art is an EarSay initiative, created and directed by Judith Sloan, born out of our partnership with the International High School at LaGuardia Community College where many teenagers have emigrated to the U.S. from war-zones and conflict-zones. The premise of this workshop is based on healing through artistic expression using a combination of music, movement, theatre and storytelling. This process helps release the stories and stressors that prevent people who have been traumatized by war, economic or natural disasters from moving forward. This program brings an understanding of confronting obstacles through artistic expression to communities that are poor, displaced, or don’t have access to artistic training, serving approximately 450 students. The project grows out of our commitment to creating artistic works that evolve out of individual experience and community. In this case, the community is immigrant and refugee teenagers attending school in New York City. At a time of war, global tension, and polarization, our program encourages a depth of scholarship and storytelling that shapes the experience of the participants, giving them tools to make connections between cultures, shed light on the complexity and humanity of each individual, and deepen what it means or could mean to be part of a global community.

Girl Be Heard: A nonprofit theatre company that brings global issues affecting girls center stage by empowering young women to tell their stories. If a girl can change her own life, she can change the lives of girls everywhere. We envision a world in which every girl is valued and encouraged to be a leader and change maker.

Urban Word NYC: Championing the voices of New York City youth by providing platforms for critical literacy, youth development and leadership through free and uncensored writing, college prep and performance opportunities.

viBe Theater Experience: Working to empower underserved teenage girls to write and perform original theater, video and music about the real-life issues they face daily. We provide a safe, creative space for under-served girls to express their voices, take on challenges and gain the self-confidence necessary to succeed personally, artistically and academically. viBe empowers girls through intensive, free programs, which engage and inspire them to write, create, publish, direct and perform personal and truthful collaborative theater and music.

Warrior Writers: A group of 10 young leaders from East Palo Alto, CA dedicated to personal and collective transformation through the power of the spoken word. Over the course of an intensive 6 month program, the youth build community, birth their stories on paper, and create an original poetry-based play about their lives, dreams, and beliefs. Coming from California to represent Warrior Writers in Generation NOW are Vickaaay Rosalia Longino, Gabriel Gonzalez, and Geannie Als-Levy, with creator and director Andy Robinson.